#44 Sara

Yeah.

I was thinking of you last night. You know why I couldn't sleep, And rather than count sheep, I counted the toilets in your house, and I fell asleep after six or seven. But then I couldn't remember how many toilets?

Do you?

Is it again? No, that doesn't sound right at all. Count again, let's do it together. The one in the basement, one on the ground floor, the one on the balcony, the one outdoors on the front steps before you come into the house, the one on the roof. There was the one wait, what's that like dying?

I already told you you wanted to argue with you.

We're not having an argument. We're having a civilized conversation. We could have a podcast called toilet Talk from Gimblet Media. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight Today's episode Sarah right after the break, This is Sarah Haybart.

A bear, Hey bear, a bear?

A bear?

I see?

Okay, So the h is silent, Yeah, silent because Sarah Abert lives in Louisiana and her family is Cajun. Do you speak French?

I know enough French to know when my grandmother is gossiping about me.

When I was a kid, the adults would talk in Yiddish.

Could you understand what they were saying about you?

It was never great. Yeah, Sarah's here to tell me about a letter she received a while back. Her husband, Chris, usually brings in the mail, so he was the one who first handed it to her. The return address on the envelope said Abbeville, the tiny town where Sarah grew up.

So I opened the letter and I pull it out, and it's like, it is a handwritten letter.

Sarah says she can't remember the last time someone hand wrote her a letter. And then there was the handwriting itself, which was big and bubbly and written onlined paper, the kind torn from a spiral bound notebook, like.

I feel like I remember getting letters in middle school that kind of looked like this.

Can you read it?

Yes, I'd be happy to. So it says, hey, how are you doing? It has been so long since I've seen or spoke to you. You were my best friend. My dad was Nick and my mom was Terry. We got in trouble at my house one night when you slept over because we were rollerblading in the kitchen and we put down water all over the floor, which is like a very Cajun way of saying, like we spilt water everywhere. You were my very best friend, and I don't really remember what happened, but I have thought of

And the reason it's so weird, Sarah says, is that she has absolutely no idea who this person is.

At all, Like I don't have a memory of her.

But that's not even the weirdest part. The weirdest part, Sarah says, is the name at the end of the.

Letter, Sarah Abert, which is my name.

In the letter, the writer refers to herself as the other Sarah aber. So wait a second. So you read this letter and at the bottom she.

Signed it, sincerely Sarah ben abear so Beth with a thch, and my name is Sarah bess abar b ss. It's literally like pretty much the same name, right.

What was your first thought like when you finished reading this, is this a scam?

Like?

I told a couple of friends about it, and they're like this is a scam. They're like, this person's trying to get money from you or something.

Sarah's suspicions only deepened after googling the other Sarah.

My generation of people. We grew up on the internet, right, so, like it's probably possible to find like a photo of me in my twenties. I can't find anything on this person. Like I can't find like a MySpace page or like old Internet forum post. Like it's bizarre to me that someone would be my age and not have some sort of trail on the internet.

Uh huh.

The whole thing does sound pretty scammy. And yet for an entire year now, Sarah hasn't been able to throw the letter away. There are parts of it that just feel oddly familiar.

Like when she says the stuff about rollerblading. The more I read this letter, the more I'm like, something about that does feel true, Like I do feel like I got in trouble at some point for rollerblading in a kitchen when I was a kid.

Is it real or is it fake? Sarah has come to me to render a verdict, and so, like any good investigative journalist, I defer to the experts in this case the expert I turn to whenever I think I'm being scammed.

I would say that maybe three times a year you send me an email saying, is this am I being phished?

This is Alex Goldman, the former co host of the reply All podcast.

You get emails from like your wife and you're like Alex, She says they should bring home salmon.

Is this for real?

I look at a lot of things as a long con. Alex once traveled all the way to India to investigate a scam call he received. Scams are his specialty. So I lay out the letter to him, the identical names, the torn notebook paper, the big and bubbly handwriting, and then I await his ruling.

Okay, I mean just no one sends a letter to try and scam someone.

Okay.

The thing about scamming is you do it because you think it's easy. It's about getting stuff easily without having to work for it.

This is a lot of work, Alex says. Scams aren't tailored to one person like the letter is. They're more one size fits all.

Someone gets a big list of people and they email them all at once, trying to get as many people as possible. So that you can catch a couple gullible people. I've never heard of anybody saying like, I'm going to find someone and say, not only did we have almost exactly the same name, but we were best friends. A scam would be to try and create loose ties rather than tight ties. What if she just wants to reconnect what happened to you that made you so paranoid? Like this, what happened to you?

After speaking with Alex, I deliver my report to Sarah. The letter is not a scam, but this presents a new problem, one that might be more troubling. If the other Sarah is real, then Sarah has completely forgotten her best friend. How can a person forget a whole best friend? It turns out that for Sarah, a forgotten friend is just the tip of the iceberg.

I don't remember a whole lot from my life from that period of time, and part of the reason is just like I had a really difficult childhood, like when my mom and my dad separated, just a lot of weird stuff that happen.

And how old were you?

I was eight, and so like, huh.

Sarah says she was thrust into the middle of their fights, forced to listen to each parent bad mouth the other. Things grew so bad that her mom and dad refused to go to each other's homes to pick up Sarah. Instead, they exchanged her in a McDonald's parking lot. Sarah has some memories from that time, but they're patchy and full of gaps.

My mom and I at one point, like lived in a homeless shelter because like she was just trying to make ends meat as a single mom, and like this was her solution to put a roof over our heads. And this isn't like rule South Louisiana, so it's not like there are a ton of resources for families that live on the edge.

Sarah has memories of her and her mom sleeping in the same bed. She remembers playing board games and eating in the communal kitchen.

You know, Cajun culture is all about like food, right, so like we cook everything from scratch, Like it would be blasphemy for you to cook dinner for your face and for it to be hamburger helper, okay, And I remember in the homeless shelter it was the first time I ever ate hamburger helper and it was delicious.

Life with her dad wasn't any more stable. Sarah's father remarried quickly, and with his new wife operated a joint grocery store and bar, which they named The Lonesome Dove. There was a lot of hard drinking and a lot of late nights.

I would spend the night on the counter of the grocery store, like with a sleeping bag, and that's where I would sleep while they worked in the bar until late at night. It sounds depressing when I say it, but like I really liked it because like I could eat all the candy I wanted from the store, and like I could stay up late and watch like David

Kid, and that stuff, painful stuff is being dredged up. Since reading the letters, Sarah's begun remembering all the time she got sick.

I guess I puked a lot when I lived with my dad and my step mom, and I remember that it felt like I was a burden whenever I was sick. Thinking about my hesitations around like you know, breaking the seal on this part of my life, it brings up a lot of stuff that like I haven't processed.

Listening to Sarah speak, I realize that maybe it isn't so much a fear of being scammed that's kept her from responding to the other Sarah. It's a fear of opening a door to the past. For the most part, Sarah says, the past is something she pretends doesn't exist.

It sounds so ridiculous because like, the past does exist, But like I can live in a world where, like I don't have to deal with the implications of what has happened in the past. And maybe that's the way I should do it, because it's gotten me through to this point in my thirties. Like I'm doing okay.

Sarah's a college graduate, a homeowner, with a job she loves at a video game company, and a husband she's been married to for eleven years. She is doing okay. Yet all the while, the letter, which has now been sitting on Sarah's desk for about a year, still calls to her. What does the other Sarah know about her life that she herself doesn't.

Clearly, I don't want her to be hurt.

This is Sarah's husband, Chris.

You know, obviously, I'm worried that just wandering into this it might bring up a whole lot of other things about the tough parts of Sarah's past. But I think it'd be fun to just learn more about the good times that Sarah had as a kid. And if I could learn more about Sarah's rollerblading days, that would make me very happy.

So Chris hatches a plan.

He's like, you know, we could just drive down there and look at where she lives and see if it feels safe.

Together, they punched the return address on the envelope into Google street View. The house that pops up on the screen looks uninhabited, its windows dark, it's front steps missing the exterior peeling. It looks like a haunted house, which for Sarah is disconcerting, but it doesn't dissuade Chris. He still wants to make the trip, though he does admit there is a little something else motivating him.

I would love an excuse to go fill my cooler up with Blu Dan sausage from my favorite sausage maker down there.

And so early one morning in late February, Sarah and Chris load their dogs, Bowser and Noki into the car for the three and a half hour drive to Abbeville.

Noki, that's not where you go. He's in the front seat like he's gonna drive the car.

Their first stop, of course, is for sausage.

How many pounds could I buy?

I'm trying to get along.

Sarah also wants to share with Chris some of our old hans, so they stop by the Lonesome Dove. The woman who works there, now, let Sarah have a look around.

I don't remember being the ceiling being this slow, but I was small.

I'm about to say, okay, you're my but you might be a little taller now.

Sarah buys some candy and orders a hamburger.

Seem could not order one.

Later, Sarah tells me it taste it just like the burgers her stepmom used to make when she worked there. Sarah and Chris also drive by her old school, Moe Elementary.

There is a sign that says they are currently raising money by cooking gumbo.

Gumbo for mo. They park, turn off the engine, and for a while they just sit there.

Just seeing this school bring back any memories of her. No, No, next stop is the man Attraction.

We're gonna go draw by Sarah's house.

Seed.

Look, it is abandoned. Nobody lives in that house.

But then as they make their way closer, Oh.

Wait, there's a house. I'm the abandon house, Chris.

The destination is on your left.

They live in that house. That's what's going on here.

Holy shit.

What Sarah and Chris couldn't see on Google street View was the house behind the house, which has a nice yard and a car in the driveway. It's full of life.

They have kids, Look, kids bikes.

Wow, it looks so well taken care of. It feels safe. When Sarah gets home, she drafts a letter. She handwrites it on a sheet of lined paper, just like the other Sarah did. At the bottom, she signs it the same way the other Sarah signed her letter with her name with their name, Sarah Abear. About a week later, Sarah receives a text message back. It's a long run on sentence like the sender was so excited she couldn't be bothered with punctuation. Hey Sarah, this is Sarah. The

You know, initially when we started talking, I was like.

Is this a scam?

Right?

Scam thing?

And talking to Chris about like kind of how long this has been going on. He's like, I'm starting to feel like maybe there's something weird.

I'm also finding it weird. Two months ago, the other Sarah had been so excited to finally connect. So what happened?

Hi?

Hi, Happy New Year, New Year. It's January twenty twenty two. At this point, almost a year since Sarah first told me the story of the letter we catch up, So let's just recap here. You've moved since we last spoke.

I live in Los Angeles now. Yeah.

Last summer, Sarah has offered her dream job at her favorite video game company, so in August, she packed up her belongings, rented a U haul, and hitched her little smart car to the back of it like a little caboose. Yeah, Sarah says moving to California is something she's always dreamed of doing. There are more exciting things happening in the gaming world in LA than in Louisiana.

The job stuff has been amazing. But and the process of moving out here, Chris and I decided to get divorced.

Oh geez, I'm so sorry. Sarah says that Chris's whole world is in Louisiana. In the same month Sarah was to move to la Chris was starting a grad school program in southern studies.

He's got a really great career in life trajectory back home, and I want him to be able to do that too.

Boy.

I'm I'm sorry, and I have to say I'm surprised.

I mean, there's a certain point in marriage where you realize, like you really love someone, but you want them to be really happy. And I think that's been at the core of what our relationship has been. And I don't want him to be alone right like, and I don't think I'm coming back.

Sarah is talking to me over video from her new living room. There were palm trees right outside her windows, and the California sun is streaming in. There's a lot of change, it is, yeah, and yet on the other sarah Aber front, nothing has changed.

I know.

It's been ten months without a word from the other Sarah. But since moving across the country, Sarah's been thinking increasingly about home and with it, she thinks about her mysterious best friend, if she ever really was her best friend. Since the other Sarah won't answer her, Sarah's considering the idea of asking her family if they remember the little girl named Sarah Beth Abear. Specifically, she wants to ask

That part of my childhood? Like, who's really hard for me? And I'd like, I don't think my dad ever realized it.

Maybe he didn't. It had hurt to know for sure. But one Friday morning, Sarah puts her fear aside and she and I phone up Her father, Richard, is a retired mechanic known in his neighborhood as the guy who will fix anything lawnmower's chainsaws. At two o'clock each day, his buddies come by the garage hang out.

Are the guys gonna come over or no.

Shit, Yeah, they'll be here. We'll drink beer till about five.

With beer a clock looming, Sarah gets right to it. She tells her father the story of the mysterious letter.

So do you remember anyone from when I was a kid who was also named Sarah Aberty?

No?

Not really, So this is the kicker, dad. Her name is Sarah Beth t Aber.

Come on, it's.

Kind of weird right. At one point I mailed Sarah letter back, and when I went to the post office and I dropped the letter off, the lady was like, why are you mailing a letter to yourself?

Yeah?

Sarah offers details from the letter in the hopes it'll spark something for her father, but nothing rings a bell.

Disco got a good memory for neither one year you remembers her at all.

Do you think it's surprising Richard that Sarah just doesn't remember?

Now?

It doesn't surprise me because that era, at that time. You know, maybe there's sometimes back then she didn't want to remember.

Is that the case for you? Are the things that you just that you just would prefer not to remember?

Yeah, exactly.

Richard might not remember the other Sarah. But to Sarah's fear that her father never realized her pain, it seems like maybe he did.

We would going to a lot of turmoil back then, and then if I felt it, I'm pretty sure she.

Did too, because she was old enough.

Divorces and stuff like that with kids is not easy. Yeah, people get angry, People do things that you wouldn't think they do.

Your grandma was she was hateful.

Yeah, My grandma, Jonathan, Like, really, I think she had a middle breakdown after my it's got divorced.

This was your mom's mom.

Yeah, she really went off the deep end.

I remember the time she pulled a gun on me. You remember that, sir, I do. I was going to pick you up at her house. She was just mad, Yeah, because we were in her yard, gotcha, and she drove up behind me.

And I couldn't get out.

That's when she pulled a gun and we ended up running over on some of her bushes so we could get out.

You end up calling the cops that day too.

She was so frequently doing crazy stuff like this, Jonathan, that like the I guess, like the sheriff, do you remember, Yeah, he would watch for me to walk from the school to mom's house because he was worried that she would show up.

Those downards, Jonathan, you don't want to remember.

In fact, it seems like no one is Sarah's family wants to remember those times. In the weeks after talking to her father, Sarah speaks with her mother, and she speaks with her older sister, all in an attempt to see if anyone remembers the other Sarah. But no one does. Who was this little girl collectively forgotten? At this point, the only person who can answer that question is the other Sarah herself.

I really want to meet her, Yeah, I mean, I just kind of feel like whatever needs to happen to actually make it happen would be really great.

And so Sarah sends out one last text. I'm not hopeful it'll change anything, so I'm shocked when the very next day, after nearly a year of nothing, the other Sarah texts back, I'd love to talk to you. I'm sorry, it was a crazy year. The Other Sarah says that since Friday's your day off, it's the best day to talk,

I was so nervous, so nervous. I was like, I'm excited, but I'm nervous. I was like, it feels like a firstday school is starting a new job or something. I was like, oh my god, I'm so nervous.

The Other Sarah is apologetic that it took them so long to finally connect. But true to her last text, the other Sarah really did have a crazy year.

We've had a lot of issues this year. My kids that actually passed.

Away this year, So I'm so sorry.

It's difficult.

I mean, me and him weren't together, but it's hard for them, so it's kind of hard to watch them go through it.

It's really really sucks. Yeah, I bet.

Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry to hear that.

The other Sarah is raising three kids. Her youngest is only a baby, and for the past year or so she's been doing it on her own.

I'm engaged, but he.

Got in some trouble a while back, so he's finishing his time in jail.

So he gets out in June.

So will you guys get married when he gets out.

Yes, we do plan on getting this.

It's so romantic.

I'm sorry.

I think it's very sweet.

Yes. And you, what do you do?

How are you?

Do you have any kids?

I don't have any kids. No, my husband and I are separated, which is a fairly new.

Sarah tells the other Sarah about her own crazy year, her divorce, her recent move, her new job. The conversation feels like the kind between old friends easy and familiar. I'm wondering, do you guys recognize each other?

I recognize her, I don't you don't?

I feel so bad, Sarah. No, Like when I got your letter, it was like, I don't remember much of this at all.

Sarah tells the other Sarah about her life back then, her parents fighting her homelessness. The other Sarah says she had no idea what Sarah was going through.

Oh, and so like when you sent me that letter, I had this moment of like, I really want to meet this person so that I can like remember this part of my childhood that I totally don't remember at all.

And so the other Sarah tries to evoke that childhood. You can feel the other Sarah trying to drag Sarah from the fog of lost memory. She describes who Sarah was, artsy, creative, a bandkit She.

Was quiet, but when me and her got together, we had a blast. Like it was just us cutting up, having fun, goofy girls.

The other Sarah tells Sarah stories like the famous rollerblading kitchen incident.

I got in so much trouble that day, Oh my gosh.

She tells her about the sleepovers they had.

You had stuffed animals and stuff all around your room.

She reminds Sarah of the little loft space inside a guesthouse on her dad Richard's property, where they'd spend the night together to get away from everybody. She says, like it was just the two of them in the whole world. As the other Sarah talks, it becomes clear that while Sarah has been stuck for the last twenty years with all the sad memories she doesn't want, the other Sarah's been holding on to all the happy ones Sarah doesn't have.

Me and you actually went behind the counter and we were making little puppets out of paper bags, and we were we were putting on a puppet show for everybody in there.

It was pretty cool.

That's amazing. It makes me so happy. I'm sorry, just keep like bursting.

Into tears as the stories pile up, stories that span locations and rites of passage. Sarah has a realization.

We were friends for years, like a long time.

Yeah, we were friends for like four or five years.

The other Sarah says they met when they were eight years old. She isn't sure how they met, but she thinks it was because her grandmother had owned the Lonesome Dove before Sarah's dad and stepmom did, back when it was called the Red Dog. From then on, the two Sarah's were inseparable, so inseparable in fact, that they're f families had to devise a way to differentiate between them. So they broke the name Sarah into two parts and gave each girl a half Sah and Rah.

They used to call Sarah Rah.

Yeah, my family calls me that.

Yeah.

So that's why they would call me Sah and her Rah.

To distinguish you between.

Between the two. Yeah, when it was me and her together, yep.

Wow wow. And so, given their closeness and the span of years, the other Sarah has always wondered one thing, why did Sarah stop being her friend?

It sucks whenever you like, I get I don't. It's hard to explain.

I don't know what happened, you know, I don't know if y'all moved, so something happened or you know, And I know you can't remember, and I'm not expecting you to or anything, but it seemed like you almost dropped, like seriously dropped off the base of the earth.

Although of course Sarah doesn't remember why the friendship ended, here's a theory. In her early teens, Sarah learned about a Louisiana boarding school for the gifted and talented. It was two and a half hours from Abbeville, and Sarah saw it as a chance to get away from the turmoil of home. Getting into the school felt like a long shot, but she studied hard and she did get in. It was at that school that Sarah met a computer

She ended up getting sick that night, and like, instead of waking my parents up to call her mom or anything, I like helped take care of her all night until morning.

And then I went and.

Woke my parents up and was like, hey, Sarah's been getting sick all night. And my mom was like, I can't believe you stayed up all night taking care of you. Should have woke us up. I was like, no, no, she's my friend. I want to take care of her.

I don't remember that, but I got sick a lot as a kid doing exactly that. I would throw up all night long and my parents used to be so mad at me about it. Thank you for taking care of me?

Well, of course, I mean you were my best friend. You were like it was me and you.

Sarah had been scared of reconnecting with the other Sarah because of what she might learn, But what she's learning is that she wasn't alone.

I'm so sorry didn't know that that she went through so much. And I wish, I wish, I wish we weren't so young, and I wish I would have known, so I could have helped or you know, done something, even though when we were kids.

It sounds like he did.

Listening to the conversation, hearing Sarah flooded with emotion, It's clear what she's getting from the reunion, but I can't help wondering what the other Sarah's getting. She wrote her letter hoping to reconnect with an old friend, but since sending it, she's learned the time they spend together, the bond they shared that she herself, have all been erased. So what if anything did Sarah's let her do for the other Sarah, especially seeing as how it reached her a year late.

Actually, it came at the perfect timing because it came actually a week after I got out of rehab, and it was my light at.

The end of the time.

No, and when I'm home and I got the letter from Sarah, it just it showed me that good things can happen. I actually cried when I got her letter because I was just so excited. You don't know, I'm so glad that you wrote me back.

I'm so excited for you that you went to rehab.

Congratulations, I actually make I make one year sober on February eleventh, and I am super excited.

I am so grateful. Everything in my.

Life has changed, and your letter was the start of many, many good things. Like for Christmas, my son wrote me a little Christmas card and it said thank you, Mom for the greatest.

Year of my life. And that meant more to me.

Than any Christmas present or anything else that I could ever give them. I don't want to get off the phone, but I know I had to go run and get some.

Stuff taken care of.

But I mean, I'm all for doing this again, most definitely, and no matter what, as long as we can build our friendship from here, even if you don't remember the past, that would even be amazing. I mean, I don't want to lose my best friend again.

Same here.

I'll text you so we can hang out again, most definitely. Bye.

The other Sarah's scream goes black.

I think what I thought would happen in this call was like something with like click in my brain and I suddenly remember like everything, But I don't.

A key that suddenly unlocks the past. That's how it works in the movies, but it isn't how the brain works in real life. You don't talk to someone from your past and suddenly recover memories. You can't recover what you never clocked in the first place. There are studies that show that when people are confronted with an immediate threat to their safety, they're focused on the danger impairs their ability to recall other peripheral details.

My therapist I was just asking her about like the nature of memory, and like, why wouldn't I remember something good? And she was like, your memory is like a camera, so it only captures like what you're focused on at a time. And she was like, if you were just focused on, like let me survive and cope in this scenario, your camera probably just wasn't pointed at Sarah.

The two Sarah's met when they were around eight, the age when Sarah's folks split up and Sarah's life grew increasingly hard. Sarah's camera was focused on the immediate threats. The other Sarah remained out of frame. What is the value of happy memories if you don't remember them? After the conversation with the other Sarah, this is the question that Sarah has left to grapple with.

You know, hearing I had a friend that was like willing to take care of me all night long while I like pewed my guts out. That's like amazing, you know, that's like real friendship. I don't know if I have adult friends in my life now, who would do.

That to which Just before Sarah set out for La Chris told her he wasn't going to make the trip with her as planned, which Sarah says totally made sense given the breakup, but it left her alone. None of her family or friends offered to step up.

But if that had happened to someone in my family or someone that I really cared about, I probably would have been the first person's step and say you don't need to do this alone. But I would really like that in any of my relationships, whether that's like with my family or with someone I'm intimate with or friendship.

I don't know.

I feel like for a lot of my life, I have wanted the people who are important to me to show me the investment and the love that is part of that relationship. And I've spent a lot of my life not getting that from like my parents are my stepmom right, And it's like, maybe I did have that person. Maybe Sarah was that person.

Sarah says she's learning to love her new life in La but still misses Louisiana. She's planning to visit soon, and when she does, she says she wants to see Sarah. She's hoping this time they can meet in person, not to uncover lost happy memories, but to make new ones.

Now that the fern Urest turned into its goodwill home, now that the last month's rent is skiing with the damage to poss take this moment to dissolve.

If we met him, if we tried, we felt around.

For far too from things that acts.

This episode of Heavyweight was produced by supervising producer Stevie Lane, along with Moheeny mcgowker and me Jonathan Goldstein. Our senior producer is Khalila Holt. Production help from Domiano Marquetti. Special thanks to Emily Condon, Alex Bloomberg, mime O'Donnell, Sonia Dosani, Rosie Garren, and Jackie Cohen. Thank you also to Professor George Bonano, author of the book The End of Trauma. Bobby Lord mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellows,